The companies awarded at Eco Pack 2024
The winners of the Conai Contest were announced on 14 November during the “L’Economia del future” (Economy of the future) festival organized by the Corriere della Sera newspaper and hosted at the Triennale Milano
The 2024 was a record year for the CONAI Contest for eco-design which, for the first time saw over 400 projects submitted (414), up 11% compared to 2023. Of these, 248 projects were awarded, submitted by 118 companies that made innovations to their packaging, contributing to reducing emissions of CO2 by 27%, energy consumption by 20% and water consumption by 18% compared to their previous packaging. The most common eco-design strategies adopted, in fact, include the use of recycled material, savings of raw material (that is reducing pack weight) and – a solution introduced this year – the saving of virgin raw material to underline the importance of utilizing increasingly less primary material.
The significant participation confirms the growing attention of Italian companies towards a more sustainable production model, as declared Simona Fontana, general manager of CONAI. «We are talking about 118 enterprises that have been able to rethink their packaging in order to reduce environmental impact: this is a crucial step not only for individual companies, but for the entire supply chain and for the country, increasingly sensitive to, and aligned with, the European circular economy objectives. As CONAI, we have the task and duty to support their efforts».
And sustainability was discussed at length during the two days of the festival in which new perspectives emerged that are destined to mark epochal turning points. The debate highlighted the fact that enterprises need to begin to consider the environment as an authentic stakeholder, not only a resource to be exploited at zero cost. A number of pioneering companies, such as Patagonia and Faith-in-Nature, have already begun to take this course, the first selling the company to a no-profit organisation involved in combatting the climate crisis, the second inserting a member into the BoD delegated to speak and act on behalf of Nature.
Returning to the awarded projects, the Conai Contest offered a prize pool of 600,000 euros, of which 550,000 was divided between all the awarded cases in the final classification. The remaining 50,000 euros were, instead, subdivided equally among the five winners of the super prizes for circular innovation, selected by an expanded technical committee and here described below.
Nuova S.A.I.M.P.A. – Prevention strategies: reuse
Nuova S.A.I.M.P.A. has redesigned a packaging system for transporting kitchen knobs: before, the products were transported on disposable PS trays, separated with cardboard interlayers and expanded PE sheets, all inserted inside an American box; now, instead, the expanded PE trays are reusable and, thanks to a reuse procedure implemented between the company and customers, it’s possible to also reuse the boxes; the cardboard and plastic interlayers have been removed and the weight of the trays has been reduced by 40%.
Massimo Zero with Sdr Pack – Prevention strategy: recycling
The composition of its biscuits with chocolate chips packet has been changed, moving from an OPP+OPP+ PE multi-layer solution to a recyclable mono-material OPP+OPP solution. The weight of the packet has been reduced, moreover, by 30%.
L. Manetti - H. Roberts – Prevention strategy: use of recycled material
The eco-design project focused on the bottle and cap of the Rose Distilled Tonic Water. Previously, the bottle was in PVC and the cap in ABS, while the new bottle is in 100% r-PET and the tap is in PP.
Lindt & Sprungli – Prevention strategy: new applications or technologies
The project concerned the Boules Lindor wrapping. Before the wrapping was composed of a combination of a polypropylene film with a central aluminium band. The new solution, instead, involves a modification of the type of coupling of the two polypropylene and aluminium layers that, while remaining unaltered, are delaminated.
Sdr Pack and Margherita – Prevention strategy: new applications or technologies
The composition of the packaging film for three pizza margheritas has moved from a multilayer in OPP, metallised PET and PE to a recyclable mono-polymer solution in PE. The weight of the packaging has also been reduced with a raw material saving of 6%.
A special mention for the optimisation of packaging in the e-commerce sector was given to Litocartotecnica Valsabbina, which redesigned its box for transporting wine into a single body with shaped inserts designed to keep the bottles still without using internal fillers. An anti-theft lock has also been incorporated, which prevents tampering with the box during transport. The weight of the box has been reduced by 36%.
